


On the Riverbank

by heyitsalyssa



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-10
Packaged: 2017-12-14 14:17:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/837824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyitsalyssa/pseuds/heyitsalyssa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Gyda survives the plague and Athelstan becomes increasingly distracted by her beauty as she grows into a woman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Riverbank

**Author's Note:**

> As far as ages go, at the time of the show, I estimated Gyda to be 12, Bjorn to be 14 and Athelstan to be 21.  
> By the end of the story, Gyda is 17, Bjorn 19 and Athelstan 26.
> 
> Also I apologize for the probably crappy title. I'm really bad at titles. And summaries.

The plague came quickly and unexpectedly. And it was almost certain to be fatal. A fever on the first day led to a painful sickness so severe one was bedridden. At that point it was only a matter of time before death took them.

Lagertha Lothbrok was worried but thanked the gods that Ragnar, Bjorn and even Gyda were gone on a raid and so were safe. Her only company was Athelstan. Thyri had just passed and Siggy fell ill not long after. Lagertha and Athelstan spent most of their time taking care of the sick and the dying. So when Athelstan fell ill as well, it was a tragedy but not exactly a surprising one. She prayed over him as often as she could. The man had become like a son to her. She sent word to her family about Athelstan’s condition and his probable fate. Ragnar and Bjorn decided to stay. But Gyda, little Gyda, rushed home. She only hoped she would not be too late.

Gyda stayed at Athelstan’s bedside constantly, only conceding to leave when her mother gently forced her to eat something or sleep in her own bed. She fetched him water and food on the rare occasions he was awake and hungry. In the nights when she couldn’t fall asleep she would talk, sometimes to him, sometimes the gods (hers _and_ his), sometimes simply the universe.

“Oh, please don’t make Athelstan die,” she asked no one in particular in an inarticulate prayer. “He can’t die. Please make him better. He can’t die. _I love him_.” At those three little words that she’d had no plan of saying, her mouth dropped open, then she snapped it shut again. She’d been speaking quietly but in the silence it felt like a shout and she glanced around to see if there was anyone around that could have heard. But no one was there. She looked back down at Athelstan and brushed his dark hair off of his pale, sweaty brow, when she noticed his eyelids flutter open. He said her name weakly.

“Hi Athelstan,” she said timidly, hoping he hadn’t heard what she’d said. _I love him._ She hadn’t meant to say it, had never even thought it to herself. She thought he was good-looking, she admitted to herself. And he was sweet and listened to her as other people did not. She loved their talks late at night, the moonlight turning the world to shades of black and white and grays, when she’d teach him about their gods and their stories and songs. And he’d do the same, telling of all the places he’d traveled to and the people he’d met. But she hadn’t known she loved him—as anything other than a friend or a brother—until she’d said it aloud and now she knew it to be true.

“Um, I have some water. Here.” She handed him a cup and he drank.

“I’m going to die,” he said, his voice betraying no fear, but a certain sadness.

“No you’re not!” she said desperately, with a ferocity that made him think that already she had something of the shieldmaiden in her. “You’re not,” she said again, quietly, but he’d fallen asleep. And she hadn’t noticed immediately but he had managed to slip his hand around hers. She yawned and fell asleep resting on his chest.

A few nights passed this way, though Gyda did more silent praying from then on, when it seemed as though Athelstan was getting better. He ate a proper meal for the first time in over a week, and then he had only a bit of a headache. Soon he was back to normal. He never brought up what she said so she assumed he hadn’t heard her. Her embarrassment dissipated, things went back to normal and time passed. Ragnar returned with a very pregnant Aslaug who gave birth to two boys. Bjorn got married at 16 to a bastard daughter of King Horrik. When he was 17, the girl gave birth to a daughter. Gyda turned 15—the age of womanhood.

The occasion called for a celebration. The Earl’s only daughter had grown into a beautiful woman. On the day, a warm one in the middle of summer, she wore a ceremonial dress of thin white linen that fell around her bare feet. Her copper hair was loose and heavy down her back, a small wreath of flowers woven in. She was beautiful with her body of a budding woman and her eyes that still held the wonder and delight of a child. Rather unfortunately, Athelstan had begun noticing her growing beauty some time ago. Sometimes, when he braided her hair, he noticed the graceful swoop of her pale neck and became distracted, fumbling the braid and being forced to start again. Other times he found himself watching her lips as she talked, missing each word she said. But she only smiled kindly when this happened and repeated herself. Once or twice Bjorn caught him staring as she walked along or laughed with her mother, and snapped, “Put your eyes back in your head, priest!” On her fifteenth year day, he realized that she would be expected to marry soon. This thought created a strange and uncomfortable feeling in his chest.

Gyda became a woman in the company of the the other women of the village but Athelstan knew no further details than that as men were not allowed. He knew only the wildly varying rumors and lewd comments that the other men made.

The next morning she looked no different but he felt different. He could feel her proximity fogging his brain. The next few days were difficult for Athelstan, all distraction and clumsiness and trembling hands. Bjorn looked at him suspiciously, Lagertha worriedly. Ragnar only laughed good-naturedly. Athelstan didn’t know what it was about Gyda that had made everything so suddenly complicated and awkward. With her transformation from childhood to adulthood being spoken of so plainly he could not help but feel like she had jumped from girl to woman overnight, before his eyes. He was completely unprepared for it. And he was shocked to find how lovely she was even though he looked at her everyday. He’d seen her play in the river, practically naked, when she was a girl; he blushed at the thought now.

After spending several restless nights thinking it over, there was only one thing he could think to do. He’d have to distance himself from her. They were close friends and it would be difficult, he knew, but he had to believe it was the best thing for both of them. After all, she would be leaving home soon, he didn’t want to make it even harder for her. He would be one less person to say goodbye to. That was how he justified it to himself, anyway.

So he spent a little less time with her each day. If she asked him to braid her hair he politely declined and said he had work to do. He avoided walking alone with her. Sometimes he saw a flash of pain and confusion in her large eyes, a flash that struck him in the chest like a bolt of lightning. He felt terribly guilty and prayed often for clarity. Was he doing the right thing?

Eventually he noticed that Gyda stopped trying to engage him in late-night conversations before bed. She was home less and became friends with other people her age. And she seemed happy. Athelstan took this to mean he had done the right thing. And if it hurt in the pit of his stomach when he saw her laughing with her new friends, well that didn’t matter. And when he noticed the way that one boy—he thought his name might be Eirik—looked at her, as if he were devouring her with his eyes, Athelstan told himself he was simply seeing things.

And life went on. Bjorn’s wife had another child—a son. Athelstan liked the children, and found that he was good with them, and so she brought them around often. Gyda began talking of a few of her friends having lovers or talking of marriage. This was weird for Athelstan, Gyda speaking so openly of lovers (though the thought did cause her to blush faintly) and her being so young. Or, at least, what Athelstan saw as young, though she had since turned 17. Her mother asked if she had a boy and he told himself that her answer did not matter. But he was relieved, all the same, to hear her say no. Ragnar was still Earl, Aslaug had another son as did Lagertha. The seer was right, Ragnar would have many sons.

One evening, Gyda came home looking flustered, her cheeks were flushed, her hair coming loose in wisps around her face. Athelstan was the only one home at the time and he rushed to her.

“Gyda? What is it?” What’s happened?”

She looked up at him, startled, and she blinked heavily a few times. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing, I’m fine.”

“Gyda,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Gyda, you can tell me.” He looked closely at her for the first time in months. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Her eyebrows crinkled, creating a crease between them that Athelstan did not want to find adorable. “For what?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But please, tell me what happened. I can help.” He wasn’t, and couldn’t be, sure if that last part was completely true but he realized he would do just about anything in his power for her.

She sighed but was silent for a long time and just when he thought she wasn’t going to talk, she spoke. “It’s Eirik,” she said, “he um, he asked me to marry him.”

Athelstan felt a very strange sensation in the pit of his stomach. “What? What did you—”

“No,” she answered his question before he finished it. “I told him no. I had no idea he felt that way, I was shocked. I reacted a little weirdly, a little rudely; I laughed a bit—I did not mean to, it just came out. And then all of a sudden he was scary. His eyes turned hard as stone and—and…”

“What did he do?” Athelstan felt his blood boil, and he felt a strong desire for violence that was previously unknown to him and the intensity of which unnerved him slightly. He was not a violent man.

“Oh, no,” she said, knowing which path his thoughts had taken, “nothing...like _that_. I mean, nothing horrible. He just—he kissed me. I tripped and fell when I was trying to get away; that is why I’m all dirty. But I did get a fair good smack in before I went.” A small smile sat on her lips at the thought of the pink splotch her had had created on Eirik’s cheek. “I was simply more startled than hurt and it’s just that, well…” she seemed embarrassed to say whatever she meant to say next. “I have never kissed anyone before,” she said quickly. “And I know it might be kind of foolish but I wanted it to be perfect. And it is as if he took it from me.”

“Oh Gyda,” he whispered, and leaned down. Putting his hand gently under her chin he tilted her face up toward his. He saw all of her in her eyes. The little girl and the woman. The strong shieldmaiden and the quiet peacemaker. And he touched her lips with his own. Athelstan had kissed very few girls in his life—he could count them on one hand and still have a few fingers folded down—and he had never understood the appeal of it, until then. Kissing Gyda was so perfect he wondered how it could be a sin (as that was what he was taught in the brotherhood) for surely this elation could only be the work of God, Himself. And if this was a sin he decided he would gladly go to hell for it. He slipped his hand in her hair but she placed hers flat on his chest and pushed him away slightly.

“Athelstan, wait.”

“I am sorry,” he said. “I should not have been so presumptuous. I—I apologize.”

“No, no, wait,” she said, smiling kindly. “I just don’t understand. Why now? Athelstan, you have scarcely talked to me in months, years really.”

“I know and I am sorry. It’s just, it is foolish. But when you turned 15, I did not really understand it, it was as if you had become a butterfly overnight. Or a small star that had suddenly taken on the brilliance of the noonday sun. And I was gone. You _were_ the noonday sun and I could not take my eyes off of you. I started looking at you differently and...thinking thoughts I have never thought before, thoughts I was always told were sinful, evil. It was overwhelming, it was like my head was spinning. Bjorn caught me staring at you several times and threatened to have my eyes. And then I realized you would be expected to marry soon. I thought if I could stay away from you I could handle it and I suppose I did for a while. But it was horrible, like living in the neverending dark. The only thing that made it easier was that I thought I was doing the right thing for you.”

“You were my best friend,” she said. “I missed you so much.”

“I know. I am sorry Gyda. I felt as if I were going mad.”

“Stop. Stop apologizing. Please.”

“I am sor—” he stopped himself and they both laughed. “Gyda,” he whispered, “I think I love you.”

Her eyes widened and she thought back to that night when she was a girl, when she had thought he was going to die. “I loved you. I think I still do, really. But I also feel like I do not know who you are anymore. And I miss you.”

“Okay. Okay,” he said, “I understand. But could I maybe be permitted to kiss you again?” In response, she pulled him to her by the front of his shirt and kissed him with a hunger that made him blush. After a few seconds he pulled away just enough so that he was speaking against her lips.

“I have no idea what I am doing,” he said. And though it was certainly true of the kiss, he was more referring to everything. But she seemed to understand all of that.

“Do not worry. I don’t either.”

And with all that needed to be said having been so they kissed each other with a new sense of urgency and all the delightful, endearingly chaotic confusion of first love. He tangled his hands in her hair and the back of her tunic, pulling her tightly against him. She had her arms up around his neck and tugged on his wild, dark hair, which caused him to make a tiny noise in the back of his throat. And when she bit his lower lip he felt a stirring low in his body that was unfamiliar but that was not entirely unpleasant. But he knew if they didn’t stop now, they wouldn’t. He pulled away again, breathing heavily now.

“We have to stop,” he said, sounding as if it was the exact opposite of what he wanted. “If we don’t stop now, we won’t at all. And that isn’t how I want this to happen.”

“You’re right,” she said, sounding just as out of breath as he and just as reluctant to quit. They looked in each other’s eyes, faces only inches apart, and smiled. He took her hand; she beamed at him.

“Come on,” he said, pulling her out the door and into the silver of the moonlight.

“Where are we going?” she asked, her voice colored by a smile. He didn’t respond, and they walked in a pleasant silence, but her question was answered when they emerged, several minutes later, on the riverbank. He sat down in the dirt and looked up at her entreatingly until she sat down beside him.

“We are going to get to know each other again. I want to talk to you properly again.”

“About what?” she asked.

“Everything.”

They talked about everything they could think of, everything that mattered and didn’t. They laughed and it was as if no time had passed at all. They found themselves telling stories until the sun came up. A glowing haze hung around them and for each of them there was only the other. Eventually, they lapsed into silence and they lay back, watching clouds and listening to the water. And when the sun reached its apex in the sky and the heat became too much, they ran into the cool, welcoming arms of the river.

**Author's Note:**

> I know there's a lot of viking culture inaccuracies in this. I don't know much about vikings, really. And I apologize. I needed a means to an end and hopefully that doesn't totally detract from your enjoyment of the story.  
> Also I'm really nervous about this. It's my first attempt at Vikings fan fiction and my first time posting anything so be nice. Although constructive criticism is definitely welcome.  
> Thank you :)


End file.
